


Must Be Someone Waiting

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Comfort Sex, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-05 01:23:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16357949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: As Rey searches for connection, she finds an agreeable partner in Poe. What surprises her is that she finds a bit more than that.





	Must Be Someone Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> For damerey week, day 4 & 5, post-TLJ and loneliness. Title from Dinah Washington.

Rey doesn’t miss Kylo, exactly.

She thinks you can’t actually miss someone who is that… complicated, someone who has the capacity to make her that ragingly angry, someone she knows now who will never see anything the way she does, someone unwilling to take the steps he needs to rectify all that’s been done, both by him and to him. She does, however, miss the feeling of connection he gave her, the feeling of understanding, the way it felt like he was the first person to truly know her, to understand how it felt to be truly alone.

That’s not to detract from her own, admittedly new, but important nonetheless, friendships. Rey doesn’t know where she would be without Finn. (Well, Jakku, probably.) General Organa is sharp-edged but always listens, and she understands about Luke and Kylo in a way that no one else can. Rose is sweet and funny, and Chewbacca has welcomed her as a partner. BB-8, Kaydel, Black Squadron.

Rey has friends, but nothing feels quite the same.

The Resistance is rebuilding, starting over on a planet that had no name before they arrived, just a designation. It rains a lot and Rey sometimes likes to stand out in it, letting it soak her through. Finn thinks she’s crazy.

It’s raining now; Rey holds her hand out and lets the droplets catch on her palm. She thinks about being on Ahch-To, the first time it had rained there, the first time she had ever seen rain. 

But that reminds her of Kylo and she doesn’t want to think about him.

“Hey,” someone says, and Rey turns her head to look at Poe.

“Hi,” she says.

He drapes his jacket over her shoulders, shrugging at her puzzled expression. “Cold out here. You’re all wet.”

The warmth that spreads from her belly out to her limbs isn’t because of the jacket. Poe still surprises her; she isn’t used to anyone as easily, genuinely, and unselfconsciously giving as Poe is. Nothing came for free on Jakku; Poe is kind just because he wants to be. He never asks for anything.

Rey is still getting used to it, still trying to strike away her reflexive suspicion.

He doesn’t say anything as he stands there and Rey just watches him. The rain gets caught in his thick hair, flattening it, dripping down his face. 

She wants to not be alone.

“Poe,” she says, and he looks at her. He has the kindest face, she thinks. 

“Yeah?” 

It’s hard to make herself reach out. She touches his wrist. “Will you come inside with me?”

Poe’s eyes narrow just a little, like he’s figuring out what she means. “You want to have dinner or something?”

Rey shakes her head and stands a little closer; they are very nearly the same height. “My room’s warmer than here, and it’s dry.”

His lips part, like he’s surprised. He lifts his hand to her hip, his thumb rubbing. “I can… I can keep you warm, if you want.”

It is almost a relief that it’s so easy, that he understands, that he just goes with it. She knew he would be what she needs. “I do.”

He walks beside her as they head back into the base, as they move down the corridors to Rey’s quarters. He doesn’t touch her but he walks close enough that their bodies brush together every now and then, his fingers on hers, their shoulders.

Rey isn’t sure what she expects when her door closes behind them but Poe smiles at her and cups her face, he kisses her softly and lightly and Rey presses into him. He undresses her with slow and gentle hands, peeling her out of her wet clothes. 

She doesn’t know what he thinks, so she tells him, “On Jakku, there was a girl, we used to… It wasn’t anything but I…”

He smiles again and his lips are on her cheek. He murmurs, “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” and he slides his mouth over her jaw. He says, “Just tell me what you want.”

It’s easy after that. Poe is warm and the feel of his hands and his mouth and his body is everything Rey needs.

She lets him lie beside her when they’re done and she doesn’t feel so alone.

-

Rey doesn’t tell Finn, or anyone. It isn’t regret, or shame, or anything like that. She doesn’t feel as though anyone needs to know. She likes having something that is only hers; she likes feeling as though this is hers, Poe is hers.

Poe doesn’t seem bothered that Rey is inclined to keep this a secret. He lets her take the lead; he doesn’t push her for anything. When they are in public he treats her like he always did, before. He smiles and laughs and teases her; he doesn’t touch her any more than he touches anyone else, casual hands on shoulders and hips or his arm around waists.

It feels a bit different now, when he touches her, now that she knows how his body fits against hers, now that she knows the feel of his hands on her bare skin, his more intimate touch. His smile seems different, but only to her.

He treats her no differently, and she doubts anyone notices.

He steps back and lets Rey initiate everything. He sleeps in her bed only when she asks him to, and he walks to her quarters at her side only when she asks him to.

It’s simple, and it works, and somehow the sweet physical connection he offers fills a void.

-

“That looks like a kriffing mess,” Poe says, sliding into a seat across from Rey in the canteen, where she has her broken lightsaber lying in pieces.

“Thanks for the encouragement,” she says, and frustratedly pushes the cracked kyber crystal away from herself.

“Looks like you need a new one.”

“Stunning observation.”

His smile is a little crooked. “Time for a cross galaxy road trip?”

“Maybe.” Rey chews her lip. “Seems selfish to leave, when there’s so much to do here.”

“You’re the closest thing we’ve got to a Jedi. Think no one would begrudge you the means to get a new lightsaber. In fact, most people would urge you on.”

“I guess.”

Poe nudges her foot beneath the table. “You can admit you’d miss me. That’s the real reason you’re hanging around.”

Rey rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t sleep alone that night.

-

Rey builds her new lightsaber without guidance and she likes the way General Organa looks at her when it’s finished, this mix of pride and pleasure and approval.

Even better she likes the way it feels in her hands, the heft of it, the way it feels like it’s part of her more than Luke’s ever did. She shapes it like a staff, a blade on both ends, and it swings like it was always meant to be wielded by her. The crystal called to her, and it feels like it belongs with her.

Poe watches her when she trains, when she moves through the lightsaber forms that she instinctively knows, ever since Starkiller Base. She thinks maybe she took them from Kylo’s head.

Poe watches her and she grins at him; from the way he looks at her she wonders if he will take her to his bed, for once, if he will kiss her the way he clearly wants to, pull her to him and hold her. She feels warm all over, and not only from the exercise; she wants to feel him between her legs and she thinks that anyone who saw them would be able to know it.

But no one sees, and Poe doesn’t grab her. He licks his lip and his cheeks are flushed and Rey murmurs into his ear when she extinguishes her lightsaber and draws close. He makes a sound in his throat and nods; he seems relieved almost as much as he seems turned on.

They lock themselves in her quarters rather than have lunch.

-

Poe spends more and more time in the command center, planning missions with General Organa and leading the briefings. Rey knows he likes it best of all when he is in his cockpit but he is better at this than he thinks he is; the Resistance follows him as surely as they follow the general.

Rey teases him in her bed, calls him Commander and asks for his orders. He laughs and plays along, tells her to suck his dick and then gasps when she does, holds her hair in his fists and pets it when he comes, breathlessly laughing when she smirks at him and still calls him Commander.

But then he flies out himself, tracks a First Order pilot deep into their territory, goes off-radar and out of contact. Rey stays busy herself while he’s gone, has more than enough to keep herself occupied. She doesn’t worry, because that would be stupid, just like she knows Poe doesn’t worry when she is away. Worry solves nothing and they are both good at what they do.

The problem is that Poe is gone longer than he is supposed to be, and no one can find him. There is no way to know if his delay means he got caught or killed, or if he simply needed more time.

Rey isn’t worried. She isn’t afraid. When she volunteers to take Poe’s spot in a mission with Black Squadron it’s only because she knows she’s a good pilot and because the Resistance could use her. 

Finn says, “I’m sure he’s fine,” and Rey snaps back that of course he is, because he is. He’s Poe, and she doesn’t care anyway, not any more than she would if it were Finn, or Rose, or Chewie.

She doesn’t know exactly what she feels when she comes back and sees Poe on the tarmac as she climbs out of the X-wing. She’s exhausted and sweaty and Poe looks worse than she feels, like he hasn’t slept in days.

She wants to hit him in his stupid face and that’s what she’s going to do, because he’s an asshole and she wasn’t worried, she wasn’t, but then somehow he’s standing there and she’s throwing her arms around him and she forgot how good he feels, how good he smells. She tells herself it’s fine because friends hug, friends hug all the time, she would hug Finn if he scared her, if he disappeared like an asshole, but no, she wasn’t afraid, not even a little.

“Didn’t know you cared, pal,” Poe says, and Rey doesn’t know why she feels like crying.

“I hate you,” she says.

Poe says, “I know,” and lets her squeeze him tighter.

-

Somehow it feels different after that. That night Rey came so many times she lost count, but it was waking up with her body pressed to Poe’s that she really needed.

It’s because he makes her feel not alone, she tells herself. She would miss the connection. That’s all. That’s all she ever wanted from him.

But when Poe has BB-8 project a holofilm for Finn and invites Rey and Rose to join them, Rey finds herself squeezing into Poe’s space, leaning her back against his chest so he can wrap his arms around her. She knows it’s more than friends do. She’s essentially sitting in his lap and she wouldn’t even do that with Finn.

It feels right, though. It feels like what she needs.

Poe goes with it, and he rubs his thumbs over her wrists, he strokes her hair behind her ears. Rey can feel the steadiness of his breathing and the heat from his body and it makes her feel calm.

The following morning Rey has breakfast with Finn after they go for a run and he says, “Why didn’t you tell me you were with Poe?”

“Because I’m not.” She isn’t, not really, not the way Finn thinks. She just… likes him. She enjoys his company.

“Uh huh,” Finn says, grinning, and Rey doesn’t know why her face feels so warm.

-

Rey faces Kylo and no one wins, really, but she comes back with a cauterized wound across the back of her shoulder. It hurts but it’s not actually serious, but Poe looks at her with fear that Rey has never seen before. He won’t let up until she submits to bacta treatments in the infirmary and this time he doesn’t wait for Rey to say,  _ please come to bed with me. _

He follows her and undresses her carefully; he makes her lie down like she’s a child. She shouts at him but he won’t stop fussing and Rey doesn’t know how to handle it. They aren’t like this, and no one has ever taken care of her, not in her whole life. She doesn’t need it.

But he’s still looking at her like he’s afraid and Rey remembers how she -  how she wasn’t afraid, she wasn’t, when she thought Poe might be dead, and she makes herself calm, lets Poe stroke his hands over her skin, lets him tuck her in, lets him kiss her shoulder beside the bandage, lets him curl around her and hold tight.

She likes it, maybe.

-

(“I hate you,” he whispers, and she says, “I know.”)

-

There’s a celebration, a sort of party, when a couple of the mechanics get married. Rey doesn’t know them well but she loves how happy they look; it gives her hope, somehow, hope that they can all have a bright future. She hasn’t felt that way very often, with all that’s happened, all the loss, but she looks at the way they smile at each other and it feels attainable.

She sits with Finn and Rose and Poe with glasses of bad booze and laughs more than she has in weeks. She sits close enough to Poe that she can feel the press of his arm against hers. Finn keeps smiling at her, like he knows more than she does, and it’s kind of annoying but she’s too content to be bothered. 

Jess comes over to coax them into dancing, but the alcohol is going to Rey’s head and she can’t quite muster the energy to move. Poe makes excuses to stay with her and Finn keeps giving her that look even as he sways his hips to the music and gets caught up in the midst of all the celebrating. 

Rey leans her head against Poe and he touches his fingertips to her thigh lightly, where no one else can see. He still keeps her secret, even when Rey wonders whether it needs to be a secret at all.

She doesn’t know what they are, but he makes her happier than she had thought she could ever be. 

A pilot called Joph comes over to poke fun at Poe and to offer to dance with Rey; he looks just interested enough that Rey thinks he’d like something more than just a simple dance between friends.

She could do it anyway, could have fun like everyone else is, could maybe find some pleasure in the idea that she is wanted.

But Rey knows she already is wanted, and she doesn’t want to be wanted by anyone else.

She doesn’t need her secret anymore; she thinks Poe has been hers for a long time.

“I’m with Poe,” she says, and knows that it’s right.

Joph’s mouth quirks as he looks from Rey to Poe, and he smiles a little as he goes off to find another partner. 

“With me, huh,” Poe says, a little too tired and maybe a little too surprised to make the joke Rey had expected. All he manages is, “Could’ve told me first.” He stretches his arm around Rey’s waist and he kisses her cheek.

Rey has everything she needs.


End file.
